Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [79]
Gary always put the blame on prison. All those years he had get his rocks off on nude pictures instead of leaning on a woman. She got mad enough tonight to tell him it was bullshit. He was drinking too much, using Fiorinal too much. Gary defended Fiorinal. "I don't want to make love with a headache," he said. "I have headaches all the time, and Fiorinal relieves it."
She sat there with her anger pushed in like a spring. Dead and wet, he was going to give it a go. Don't start what you can't finish she told him. Be straight.
The work began. Now they wouldn't get to bed till four, be up at six. Then he took some speed, and it took effect. He got hard as a horn and wanted to fuck. She was so tired she could only think of sleep. But they were doing it. On and on. He couldn't come.
Lying there, she said it clearly to herself, "He's a bad package."
In the second week of July, on a hot morning, she found Jim Hampton over at her mother's house. After the way he had played around with April, Nicole didn't feel too good about him, but he had his little sister and brother in tow, and she kind of enjoyed spending a day with somebody else for once. They just drove around and even stopped at her place in Spanish Fork so she could pick up something for the kids. Then she returned Hampton to her mother's, and drove her own car back. With all that cruising, she must have driven close to a hundred miles that day.
By the time she got in, Gary was already back from work and looking at the motor of his car. She sat down on the front step. There was a silence between them you could push.
He finally asked her what she'd been doing. I, Nicole said, have been sitting on my ass over at my mother's. I didn't have enough gas to come back, so I had to stay there all the goddamn day. "Yes," she told him, "I've been sitting on my ass." Well, he told her, something feels different in the house than when I left this morning. Were you back here today?
Yeah, I got back here today, she answered. I thought you were sitting on your ass over at your mother's all day, he said. She gave a smile and said, That's exactly what I said.
Gary walked over from the car, looking as casual as if he was going into the house, and when he passed, he slapped her front-handed across the face. Pretty sneaky. Her head was ringing like an alarm clock.
Nicole felt like she deserved it. Rudeness that came out of nowhere was something he couldn't handle. Still, this was the second time he had hit her. She could feel a lot of ugliness beginning to collect in her.
Next day, she was able to let some of it out. Since she didn't always have money for diapers, or laundry soap, and there wasn't always clean underwear, she liked to let the kids play naked in the summer. Some of the neighbors must have gotten uptight.
On this day, while Jeremy was on the grass of somebody's lawn, and the rest of the kids were sitting on the edge of the ditch between the sidewalk and the street, their feet in the water, a cop car pulled up and hollered something. Nicole couldn't believe what she was seeing. The cop drove no faster than a walking pace right up to her house, and came to her door, and started laying down some unbelievable shit, like you know, your kids are in danger of their playing in the ditch down there. Your little boy could drown. She said, "Mister, you don't know what you're talking about. My little wasn't anywhere near that water. He doesn't have one drop on his body." He didn't.
The cop started to say the neighbors had been phoning in complaints about her not taking proper care of the kids. "Get off my property," said Nicole, "get your fucking ass down the road."
She knew she could say anything so long as she stayed in the house. The cop stood outside making threats about welfare, and she shut the door in his face. He hollered, I better not see those kids outside. She swung the door open again.